The invention is based on a method for controlling the driving power of an engine having at least two control units.
German Patent Document DE 42 31 449 C1 discloses a system for controlling the driving power of an engine, which is constructed of at least two cylinder rows, and has at least two control units for influencing the performance of the individual cylinders rows. At least one measuring device is assigned to each control unit so that each control unit, separately of the other and without using the measuring values assigned to the other control unit, can compute control variables and monitor faults by itself. In this case, the first control unit is assigned to a first cylinder row and the second control unit is assigned to a second cylinder row. The operating parameters detected from each cylinder row are fed to the control units as a basis for computing the control variables.
The control of an engine by means of at least two control units can be arranged as in German Patent Document DE 42 31 449 C1 in such a manner that each control unit is assigned to a cylinder row. Also, only one cylinder row may be provided which, similar to aircraft engines, consists of partial engines which are controlled by two redundantly operating control units.
In contrast to the known arrangement, the method according to the invention has the advantage that the operating variables of the at least two control units are detected, compared with one another and are evaluated depending on the applicable deviation tolerances. In addition, the fault monitoring of each individual control unit is compared with the values of the other control units. In the case of engines with two cylinder rows, it therefore becomes possible to take measurements by means of monitoring the data in the control unit when a cylinder row is not operating correctly in order to avoid damage to the still properly operating cylinder row caused by the cylinder row which is not operating correctly.